The Weight of Glory
By C. S. Lewis
Rating: 8
March 31, 2008
I read The Weight of Glory four years ago, and enjoyed it immensely. But I re-read this at the request of a friend: we’re discussing how a Christian should relate to war and violence. So I asked him to read Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne, and he asked me to pick up this book to read an essay, “Why I am Not a Pacifist?”
When I read the essay this time around, I was surprised. It’s the worst I’ve read of C. S. Lewis — and I’m a huge fan! He wrote in a time when WW2 was waging across his Continent, but it has a weird ring in today’s America with the occupation of Iraq. He also wrote before Martin Luther King Jr’s Civil Rights Movement and perhaps in disdain of Gandhi’s uprooting of the British Empire in India. But his fatal flaw is in conflated Pacifism with passivity — and that’s not fair. Pacifism does not need to be passive, but could be resistance without violence (though often it is not). It was a typical “straw man” argument, and I was surprised by it’s lack of thought.
But the rest of the book is absolutely wonderful, especially “The Weight of Glory” and “The Inner Ring.” He’s lucid, insightful and persuasive, and when his command of the English language and rhetorical skills are added, he’s tough to top.
It’s a brilliant read, save for the one essay. And I’m still looking for a good argument against pacifism. (And again, I wish I could have comments to these book reviews… Sad.)
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